I'm thinking about this setup, but I've not settled on any details:

Dual Core Opteron 165 (Denmark)
2 gigs DDR
2 200 gb HDDs in RAID0 (it'll be as much a file server as it will be dependent on database queries, so SCSI offers no advantages here)

Questions:

Which motherboards support Opterons? any of the socket 939s?

I'm going to be using RAID, and like I said, I've not tinkered with computers in a long time... how is RAID done nowadays? Is it integrated on the motherboard or is it done as an attachment? Will Windows Server 2003 ask me if I want to set RAID up or is it something I have to do prior to installing the OS?

Also SATA is better than Ultra ATA, right?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

NOTE: Replies such as "It would be better if you had 10 HDDs in RAID1+0 and 32 gigs of RAM!" are not appreciated. This server is already going to exceed my needs; I'm just looking to get the best bang for my buck off of these or similar specs.

"Which motherboards support Opterons? any of the socket 939s?
"

There are indeed Opterons for socket 939 and socket 940, so be sure you get the correct MB....

Any of the NF4 socket 939's should fill the bill nicely, and the Asus top of the line board(s) do also support Raid 0/1/5/JBOD via it's integrated SATA Raid controller....

If you're going to install the OS on a (integrated ) hardware RAID 0, the BIOS will need some RAID configuring before hand, and the OS will rather quickly require drivers for the integrated RAID controller.

(many advise against the OS being on a RAID 0 due to it's lack of fault tolerance, where at least RAID 5 allows a disc failure without being up the proverbial creek; a glitch with RAID 0, and you are needing a paddle)

As for SATA vs Ulra ATA (IDE aka PATA), the SATA drives are becoming more dominate, and now most MBs might only come with one or two IDE ports, vice the 4 or even 6 IDE ports that was not uncommon a few years back...

The SATA interface is quicker, up to 3 GB/sec with SATA2 specs, but most individual 7200 rpm drives are limited in throughput to ~60 MB per sec anyway, although that can certainly be improved upon with two or more drives in RAID 0 or RAID 5...

You can get better RAID 0 help/advice in the disc drive support area, as many use them, and are better familiar with the OS/hardware quirks on an initial install.....